


Excuse Me

by Wanderbird



Series: This World Could Yet Be Kind [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Standalone, more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19708150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: Loki is hidden away in Stark Tower, waiting out the rest of her pregnancy, when an old woman with uncomfortably Loki-esque magic shows up in the lobby, demanding an audience with the supervillain in question. The twist? Loki actually knows her.Angst and the prelude to New York unveiled.Kind of a sequel to my fic Sleipnir, and takes place several years prior to Under Lock and Key.





	Excuse Me

“Excuse me.”

God damnit, Tony Stark winced as a voice pierced through his conversation with Pepper. He should have remembered his meds. Without them, the voice of that old woman talking to the receptionist—Lizzie was the one on shift right now, he thought?—was overwhelming in its clarity, even here in the lobby of his own tower.

“I’m looking for someone,” the old lady continued. “I think he’s in this tower, but I’m afraid I don’t know precisely where.”  
“Oh, are you looking for your kid?” Lizzie prompted. “Grandkid? The school tour is on the third floor right now, I can call for someone to escort you.”  
“That would be lovely, thank you,” came the answer.  
“Who is it you’re looking for? I’m afraid I can’t let you in unless I know who you’re here for.” 

“Huh?” Tony snapped back into his body, where Pepper waited pointedly by the door. “I’m sorry, babe, I got distracted. What did you say?”  
“Eavesdropping again? You’re impossible.” A smile. “Come on, let’s go find Steve—”

A flash of green.

“Loki?” Pepper tensed. “I thought Loki was still upstairs with Thor, but that, that looked like their magic.”

By the desk, a couple of security guards seemed to have been called up, but… who were they trying to grab? There was nobody—the old woman. Tony whipped around, trying to see everything he could in the half-empty lobby, where was that old woman?  
“JARVIS?” Tony called. “Where’s that old woman who was just talking? And track down Reindeer Games for me, will you?”  
“Of course, sir.”  
Tony felt the faintest of breeze to his left, air stirring where it shouldn’t. He reached out, and his hand grasped cool skin, and—  
The old woman shimmered back into existence.

Pepper was right, it looked exactly like Loki’s magic, a curtain of emerald green rippling over her skin as he made contact. But this wasn’t Loki. They were still, they were still too pregnant for shapeshifting, weren’t they? And they couldn’t do tactile illusions in the first place, so this had to be, this couldn’t be—“Who were you looking for again?” Tony stayed as calm as he could, let Pepper handle everyone else. Either this was Loki, Loki who knew better than to fight in their current state, or it was just some other person with powers who hadn’t done anything particularly aggressive yet.  
The woman’s eyes were steady on his, bright green on wrinkled skin and silvered hair. It only took a few instants for her to hide her surprise.  
“Mr. Stark,” she stated. “I’m looking for a friend of mine who seems to be living here. I only want a few minutes. We haven’t spoken in so long.”  
Good, Pepper was waving the security goons to stand down. “Does this person have a name?” Tony asked.  
A hesitation, before she murmured an answer. “…I’m looking for Loki.”

Loki.  
Goddamnit, of course she was looking for Loki, of _course_ somebody had to find out, and there would be SHIELD and fighting and questions and it would be a mess. Of course. Tony barely held in a groan of frustration. “ _How_ did you even find out about that?” he whispered. Wait, did SHIELD even hire old women that looked like they were in their eighties? Because this lady looked like she was in her eighties.  
“I’m an old friend of theirs.”  
So not SHIELD, then. Tony shared a worried glance with Pepper, but dragged the old woman alongside him and into the elevator anyway. “Yeah, I’m not buying that. Loki doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends.” He waited for Pepper to follow them, pushed the button for the eleventh floor. Let the elevator take a scan, for authorization, and they were moving. “How do you know he’s here? Also, _who are you?”_ The most obvious question finally popped into his mind. Who was she, anyway, especially if she wasn’t with SHIELD?  
“My name is Helen Thomas Gyllasdottir.”  
Was that… “So you’re Asgardian, then?”  
That faint smile on her face looked so much like Loki’s, as Helen shook her head. “I am human, of Norwegian descent.”  
“Where did you learn that magic trick you used earlier? I don’t see that in a lot of humans.” Pepper asked. “And it doesn’t look like it’s the Sanctum’s style.”  
“I learned it from my mother Gylla.”  
How was this old woman so serene? Tony thought. She was in an elevator with one of the most famous people in the world after almost getting hauled out by his security guards for asking about the alien who destroyed New York. Speaking of which, the elevator doors had finally opened, and Tony stalked along the hall until they reached a little room on the outside of the building, nothing but a table and a couple chairs. Tony didn’t have interrogation rooms, so this wasn’t an interrogation room. But it was awfully similar. “Who sent you?” he demanded. “Come on, I don’t have all day.”  
“No-one sent me. I only came to talk.”  
“And would SHIELD say the same thing, if I brought you to them?”  
Helen blinked. “SHIELD? I’m afraid I don’t actually know who that is.”  
“How am I supposed to know you’re telling the truth?”  
The old woman gave a sigh, and pressed her hands flat against the table. “Just let me talk to them,” she said, voice tired. “Loki will—Loki should know who I am.”  
“ _Why?”_ Tony was getting really tired of asking the same old question. “Why on Earth would they know who you are? Why are you here? How did you find out, and what are you doing with the information?”  
Helen hesitated, and for the first time something like anxiety flashed across her face. She answered. “I—I figured it out, I can track their magic from the other side of the planet if I need to. I’m their granddaughter.”

Silence.

“Look,” Helen conceded. “I already told you. I’m not doing anything with the information, I’m not part of, of SHIELD or anything else, I just want to see my surviving grandparent for the first time in about fifty years. I know they’re here. And I know it’s probably a secret, or they would be plastered all over the news. But I’m not about to tell anyone.” Fingertips tapped along the table’s surface.  
“You know your… grandparent is responsible for a lot of deaths.” Tony was still reeling. Loki had _kids?_ I mean of course Loki had kids, they’d already mentioned as much, but _human_ kids?  
“The Battle of New York,” Helen nodded. “I know.” Her face was somber.  
“This is great and all,” Pepper interrupted. “Really, it’s… touching.” Her voice betrayed a certain confusion at the whole situation. “But how on Earth do we know if anything you’re saying is the truth?”  
“Loki will recognize me.” The old woman gazed steadily up at them both, all hints of a smile gone. “That should be all the proof you need.”

~~~

An achingly familiar voice roused Loki from his focus.  
“Gylla?” He couldn’t help it, his heart leapt to his throat. But, but no, it couldn’t be Gylla, she was, she died fighting in one of these human wars. Loki’s eyes fixed on the woman at the door, held in Stark’s firm but careful grip. A smile split his face. “Helen!” The god was on his feet in an instant, hesitating only a few feet from his, his _granddaughter._ He had a granddaughter! She was still alive! “Oh, Helen, Helen, min skatt, it’s so good to—” But he had done so much to wrong her, hadn’t he? Loki let his breath trail off. “My apologies.” She looked so _old_ these days, so frail before him in this human suit.  
Helen’s face grew sad. At last she shook her arm from Tony’s grasp and placed one hand on either side of Loki’s cheeks, curling into his hair. “Morfar,” It was not a hug, not quite. “It’s good to see you.”  
“Loki?” Thor’s rumble issued forgotten from behind him. “Who is this?”

The shapeshifter turned in an instant, hand grasping Helen’s wrist to lead her deeper in the room. “Brother?” Loki could not keep the grin from her face as her body rippled into female form, though the expression was somewhat bittersweet. “Do you recall that mortal woman with whom I got involved during our visit perhaps a thousand years ago, by the name of Solveig?” Loki’s fingers tangled gently in the woman’s. “This is our granddaughter, Helen.”  
“Helen.” Thor stood. A grin. “I am honored. I did not know my sister had children on other worlds, but I am hardly surprised. I am Thor. Any blood of hers is family of mine.”  
The woman laughed, transforming her face into a wreath of wrinkles. “Well met, then, uncle. Here to guard my mormor in her exile?”  
Loki winced. “More like my imprisonment.” She turned back to the woman, let out a breath. Stars, seeing her granddaughter again made her stomach churn with guilt. “Helen… I’m sorry for all of that with the Tesseract, I never should have—”  
“You were not yourself.” Helen’s eyes were steady on her own. “I know you, and the being that attacked New York and Stuttgart, that was not fully you.”  
Loki shook her head. “It was,” she insisted, half-forgetting anyone else even stood in the room. “That’s the problem, min skatt, I _was_ myself. The instant I wanted something from the Earth, in my fury, I forgot you lived and needed the place intact, but I was still myself. I’m sorry. I feared, and I was angry, and it was not fair, so when I woke my first thought was to avenge myself. I was presented with the opportunity,” Loki’s hands grew tense, “and so it was all I could do to burn, and _burn,_ and _burn_ until my fires were contained.”  
“You were not yourself!”  
“I am nothing _but_ myself.”

Helen’s jaw clenched.  
“Mormor. Loki.” The woman sent one hand to cradle Loki’s head, and the glare she centered on the god was near-identical to Loki’s own. “You may believe that—”  
“I could have _killed_ you!”  
“—and I have never known you to be kind to strangers, as a general rule. But if nothing else, you are a far more competent sneak than the fool who brought an army to the Earth, you know better than that, and to call it in in such a prominent place and with a single point of failure—no.” Helen scowled. “That is the work of an amateur. That’s why I’m here, you know. If I truly thought you were that prancing, fascist idiot drawing attention to himself in Stuttgart, I would only visit long enough to punch you! If Gylla were here, I doubt she would have even him the benefit of the doubt before hanging him up with every other Nazi fool long dead at her hands, but I still do know how you act.” She could see Thor from where she stood, his gaze sharp on their exchange, his stance frozen. Had he not guessed this? “Loki…” Helen drew back. “You’re smarter than that. I know you love me. You did everything you could to make this world a safer place for me, and your daughter before me. Please.”

Loki gave no response. After several seconds, Helen came to a decision. “If you were in control, then at least tell me what happened. Everything. Why you were so angry, why you sent no warning, why I should not trust you to never harm me. Everything.”  
“Helene…”  
“Or I will continue to believe that you will not _ever_ pose a danger to me.”  
Damnit, Loki thought to herself in frustration. “Have an ounce of caution, min skatt, for your own sake! Every living thing in the universe lives in danger of _me_ , you cannot just assume—”  
“Then harm me!” The old woman retorted. “Strike me down before my time, Loki, I have a few more decades left here thanks to you, and then I will _know_ you pose a danger! But otherwise, unless you tell me what could make you lose control, as far as I’m concerned there is nothing that would make you hurt me without losing your own self.”  
“Helen—” Thor tried to intervene.  
“Why would you risk me?” Helen moved her hands to Loki’s shoulders, shoved the goddess toward the wall. “I will do nothing to you, will you kill me? Go on then, stab me if you hate me so!”  
Loki’s face was paler than normal, her lips slightly parted. She did not resist. Staggered to the wall, slumped down it to her knees. Helen believed in her, the thought refused to leave, Helen _trusted_ her and did so wrongly, because Loki had given in. Consented, to everything that happened. And then forgotten everything but rage, everything but fury and hatred and fire, fire, fire, could not even protect her own grandchild, and Helen deserved to know. If Solveig were still alive, if Gylla hadn’t fallen in that human war, if Sigyn had not hidden herself away with their remaining children on Clarius so far away, all of them would say the same. How were they all so plainly mistaken with their love? “I’m… a monster,” she whispered.

  
Helen froze.  
“I’ve told you stories of Asgard, I know I have. You know its myths,” Loki glanced up at her granddaughter briefly, but flinched and turned away. “Turns out I’m the monster. A jotun. _I’m_ the _bogeyman_ I trembled from at night.” She swallowed, voice finally slipping from her detached ironic tone. “And every time I see so much as my reflection, all I want to do is burn it, destroy it, make it stop.” A monster. Wrong. “And Odin Allfather decided to put Thor on the throne, and Thor would make a _terrible_ king, but at least now I know why he didn’t want me,”  
Loki couldn’t stop her eyes from glistening, couldn’t stop the tears from working their way down her face, “I mean he _told_ us we were equals, but he didn’t want a frost giant to rule!” Oh stars, this was far too honest, and Thor was still here, and Stark, and—and she couldn’t stop now, couldn’t stop her lips from moving, her voice from speaking. “And through all of this he _never told me_ what I was, never told me I was just some jotun cub he picked up from a looted temple! I supposed I should have guessed, with the way he always berated my slightest signs of anger. I was angry at Thor for winning, for being king, and furious that Odin never told me, and I managed to take my brother’s place on the throne when Odin exiled him, entirely legally, and that would have been enough! But no! My stupid, perfect brother had to come back with all his perfect friends and oust me from my place. And when I finally went and did _just what father wanted,_ went and destroyed Jotunheim instead of risking our people in war, Odin had the _gall_ to tell me that wasn’t it!” Loki was frantic now, tugging at her hair, refusing to risk another glance. “To say I would never, _could_ never be worthy, and I—I knew! I will _never_ be worthy, of _course_ I’ll never be worthy of anything, because I’m a monster!” The laugh which erupted from her throat was far from happy. “I’m a monster. No wonder Thor let go.”

  
There was an intake of breath from across the room.

  
“I don’t blame you for that, brother, I’m an abomination.” Her voice was casual again. As if it didn’t matter, as if none of this _mattered_ —“So I fell from the Bifrost.” She paused. The silence in the room could fill a mountain. “I didn’t freeze. Jotnar are by nature cold, it does not damage them. Instead, I landed on Titan, and I should have died, should have suffocated by then even if the fall didn’t kill me. I made it to the Void—but something called me back before I could change, before I could die.” Loki was less frantic now, and more grim. She had to keep going. Being angry hadn’t been enough, she had to make that clear, had to make sure Helene knew. “My sudden fall surprised Him, I think.” The Mad Titan, Loki shied away from the thought. There was no point in tempting fate, no point in calling Him here any sooner than necessary. “He resurrected me. Saw me, saw my desire for revenge. He asked me if I wanted to achieve it, and I said, I said yes, and then all I could remember was how I had been wronged, and He gave me the scepter, and all I could think about was rage.” She frowned. “Something was missing in that patch of time, for a very long while, missing until only quite recently. He trained me. I allowed it, but it hurt, and hurt, and hurt more than anything I’d ever felt until—until I woke up shooting through the Tesseract, and I was here. It was a bargain at the price he told me, win or die, and with a planet my reward, my _brother’s_ planet, my revenge. I’d consented. I knew, I knew when I arrived here, what His final price would be, and something told me I should flee from it—but any time I thought I might betray Him, I fell into pain again. I couldn’t think about you. Or, or anyone else I cared about. It wasn’t… relevant.” A pause. “And before long, there was nothing left in me but hatred and flames, and so I burned, and burned, and burned.” Maybe it was fitting, in that case, that now she should feel more like ash than ice. “But it was me,” Loki finished. “I was not mind-controlled. I was not forced. It was all… me.”  
Warm arms wrapped around her, frailer than they should be, frail and all too human. “Loki.” Helen sounded so tense, so taut. “Loki, that can’t be—”  
“But… you let go,” Thor rumbled from where he loomed over her. Or… knelt beside her? “Sister,” Thor placed a gentle hand on her shoulder as if, as if she wasn’t some foul creature. “Are you sure your story is correct?”  
What? Trust that oaf to gain a sense of caution only at the worst possible moment. “I’m not _lying_ to you,” she snapped.  
Thor bit his lip. “I know you are not, not to your own grandchild. But Loki… I did not drop you off the Bifrost. I swear to you on mother’s grave, if I could have stopped you from falling, I would.”  
But she remembered…  
“You were the one who let go,” Thor repeated.

Loki jolted to her feet. No, the word would not seem to leave her head, no, no, no, no, no. Thor let go. _Thor_ let go, left her to die, why else would she have wanted such brutal revenge? She could see it clearly in her mind’s eye, staring up at him, and father, and—the image seemed to slip away. That shimmer, surrounding the memory… Something wasn’t… “You’re wrong,” she croaked. He had to be. She couldn’t have— but Thor was a terrible liar, why would he, why would he even try?  
There was one way to find out.  
Loki’s hand flew out to grasp her brother’s forehead as she squeezed her eyes shut. Gave a little mental _twist_ —  
Psychic stuff was not her specialty. She’d never found any particular interest in the field, as she always had for transformations and illusions, nor had it been omnipresent on Asgard as healing magic had been. But Loki knew enough for this: Thor was not lying. It was all there, in his head, their fight and Jotunheim and both of them falling off the edge. Odin’s sudden appearance, woken from his Odinsleep to reach out his staff that Thor might grab on. The disappointment on his face. Those words; _no, Loki,_ a punch in the gut that there was never once a time when Odin had the slightest measure of faith in her, his own _child,_ supposedly. How strange it felt, to see her own face soaked in tears from another’s eyes. How numbly her heart beat, watching herself let go, fall spinning into space.  
Thor wasn’t lying.

“Loki, stand down.” When Loki woke, Stark stood only a few feet away from the three of them, one gauntlet on and raised to point its glowing palm at her. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing to Thor.”  
She withdrew her hand. Took a deep breath, eyes fixed on the window opposite. That memory, in her own mind, she knew now why it felt so strange. Thanos must have, must have had it modified. Surely one of his ‘children’ had the ability, but Thor’s mind had not a hint of tampering, so it had to be… hers.  
She was not okay.  
“…Loki?” That must be Helen. “Are you…”  
Thor tried to meet her own distant gaze, capturing that one hand in his own as he did. “Loki, whatever happened, we can work this out together. I—”  
“No,” Loki let out a breath. She wrenched back her hand, “no, this isn’t—” let power pool in her belly, “I’m sorry,” she needed time to think. To work this out into something that, something that made sense. She leapt, and by the time she reached the ground it was in the form of a grey falcon, wings outstretched to swoop back toward the ceiling.

Within three seconds, Loki was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I tried to strike a good balance between Loki the goth/emo cinnamon roll and Loki the genocidal maniac, let me know how I did.  
> \- Ent


End file.
